Coalition 'dream team' sinks to new low in popularity poll

BERLIN - The parties in Angela Merkel's increasingly embattled Government were struggling to digest their worst popularity rating in nearly a decade yesterday, less than six months after the German Chancellor had described her ruling alliance of conservatives and liberals as the country's "dream" coalition.

The damning appraisal came from the Forsa poll group, which found that a massive 84 per cent of Germans thought that Merkel's coalition partners were locked in perpetual dispute. Only 8 per cent believed that the Government showed unity of purpose.

The popularity of Merkel's conservatives has sunk two points to 33 per cent, while that of her liberal Free Democrat coalition partners has fallen to a mere 8 per cent.

Stern magazine, on whose behalf the poll was conducted, concluded: "The two parties used to be regarded as natural partners, but their popularity has now sunk to its lowest level in nine years."

Merkel has herself been the target of mounting criticism since forming her new coalition last year, on matters from her leadership to her judgment.

However, Merkel's own shortcomings - a term which only a year ago would never have been used in connection with Germany's first woman leader - pale when compared to her chief partner in government: Germany's gay liberal leader, Guido Westerwelle, who is also both Foreign Minister and Free Democrat Party chairman.

The abrasive Westerwelle was ridiculed in the media and elsewhere last September when he refused to answer a question in English that had been put to him by a BBC journalist. Since then hardly a week has gone by without his attracting negative attention.

Buoyed up by one of his right-wing liberal party's best electoral performances, Westerwelle has been engaged in a bitter dispute with the conservatives over the tax cuts which he pledged to introduce during his campaign. But these have been dismissed as "unrealistic" by the conservatives.

The issue came to a head last month when Germany's constitutional court ruled that the low amounts paid out under the country's hugely unpopular social security system - known as Harz IV - were inadequate. Westerwelle was again widely criticised for claiming that Germany had become a country of "late Roman decadence" in which the unemployed were better rewarded than those who went to work.

Westerwelle has also failed to score many popularity points for the Government as Foreign Minister.

His main claim to fame has been to encourage the removal of all remaining US nuclear warheads from Germany. Many argue that such an initiative harks back to the early 1980s and is almost irrelevant today.

If that were not enough, Westerwelle was yesterday again under fire for allowing Michael Mronz, an events manager who is his gay partner, to accompany him on his current whistle-stop tour of Latin America.

Mronz was said to have used the tour to tout for business. But Westerwelle refused to accept criticism and insisted that his partner had paid for himself.

Merkel has clearly sensed that her coalition with the liberals has failed to produce the dream-team results she expected six months ago. With key elections in North Rhine-Westphalia Germany's most populous state - less than two months away, she has refused to be drawn into a damaging public row with the liberals.

Instead there are suggestions that she is preparing to ditch them. Merkel's party is already working out plans to join forces with the environmentalist Green Party in the state.

Last week she dismissed as "nonsense" the idea that such a coalition might work at a national level, but, as one commentator remarked yesterday: "Her reaction was so heavy that she seemed to have been caught red-handed planning such an alliance."

Already, 46 per cent of Germans think that a conservative-Green coalition would be better for their country.

By contrast 62 per cent think that conservatives and liberals "simply don't fit together".

- INDEPENDENT